Whitechapel Gallery

Website

E-mail

Telephone

020 7522 7888

Fax

020 7377 1685

All information is drawn from or provided by the venues themselves and every effort is made to ensure it is correct. Please remember to double check opening hours with the venue concerned before making a special visit.

The Whitechapel Art Gallery was founded in 1901 to bring great art to the people of east London. Internationally acclaimed for its exhibitions of modern and contemporary art and its pioneering education and public events programmes, the Gallery has premiered international artists such as Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Nan Goldin, and provided a showcase for Britain’s most significant artists from Gilbert & George to Lucian Freud, Peter Doig to Mark Wallinger.

The Gallery plays a unique role in the capital’s cultural landscape and is pivotal to the continued growth of East London as the world’s most vibrant contemporary art quarter.

The Grade II* Whitechapel Gallery was designed by architect Charles Harrison Townsend. This purpose built gallery is an outstanding example of the Arts and Crafts movement and its aspirations of being accessible, spiritually uplifting and transformative. This development also builds on the 1980s expansion by Colquhoun and Miller under the directorship of Sir Nicolas Serota and inaugurated by the Queen Mother.

Venue Type:

Gallery

Opening hours

Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00Thurs 11.00-21.00

Closed: Mon

Admission charges

Free

Exhibition details are listed below, you may need to scroll down to see them all.

As part of the abstract art takeover at the Whitechapel Gallery, Lodewijks’ new commission for London draws from workshops with local young people, wherehe found out about their relationships to the spaces around them. He is interested in how drawing can be a social process built on trust and conversations with individuals or groups. The exhibition includes a series of chalk drawings made in response to the Gallery and its surroundings, a newspaper designed in collaboration with Roma Publications and a display of material from past projects.

Suitable for

Website

Fiona Banner selects from the V-A-C collection: Stamp Out Photographie

9 December 2014 — 8 March 2015 *on now

Renowned for exploring the visual possibilities of language, British artist Fiona Banner (b.1966) chooses works of art from the V-A-C collection, Moscow, as part of the Whitechapel Gallery’s programme opening up rarely seen collections from around the world.

The display explores the blurred lines between photography and painting and includes Gerhard Richter’s Kerze (1982), a hyper realistic painting of a single, glowing candle famously used as the cover of Sonic Youth’s 1988 album Daydream Nation. While Andy Warhol’s Jackie (1964) based on photographs of Jackie Kennedy Onassisis shown alongside Stretch (1964), an optical black & white painting by Bridget Riley which appears to shift and vibrate.

Website

Karen Mirza and Brad Butler: The Unreliable Narrator

14 January — 26 April 2015 *on now

A gripping new film about the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai will be screened at the Whitechapel Gallery from 14 January to 26 April 2015.

The Unreliable Narrator (2014), by London-based artist duo Karen Mirza and Brad Butler, combines footage sourced from CCTV recordings of the siege at the Taj Hotel, Mumbai, with recorded telephone conversations between the attackers and their controllers, who orchestrate the violence from afar.

In the film, televised news footage and scenes taken from a recent Bollywood movie dramatizing the event are spliced together, emphasising the complex yet pivotal role technology and the media played in the attacks. A female voiceover narrates, piecing together the story for the viewer and suggesting the violent acts were performed for the benefit of the news cameras. Highlighting discrepancies in the media coverage of the event along the way, the narrator ultimately questions the role of the artwork itself and its portrayal of an act of terrorism to the public.

Website

Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 - 2015

15 January — 6 April 2015 *on now

Bringing together over 100 works by 80 modern masters and contemporary artists including Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Piet Mondrian, Gabriel Orozco and Aleksander Rodchenko, the exhibition traces a century of Abstract art from 1915 to today, shedding new light on the evolution of geometric abstraction.

Beginning with Kazimir Malevich’s Black and White. Suprematist Composition (1915) the exhibition explores how abstract art can both underpin socially transformative spaces and filter into all aspects of visual culture.

Exhibition highlights include an entire wall filled with photographs documenting the radio towers of Moscow and Berlin by Aleksandr Rodchenko and László Moholy-Nagy amongst others, blow-up archive photographs of iconic exhibitions running through the history of abstraction and a selection of magazines which convey revolutionary ideas in art and society through typography and graphic design.

Website

Events details are listed below. You may need to scroll down or click on headers to see them all. For events that don't have a specific date see the 'Resources' tab above.

Event

Careers in the Visual Arts: Film and Events Programming

27 March 2015 10am-6pm

24 April 2015 10am-6pm

From curating film programmes to organising festivals, producing films and developing residencies, this day explores the varied role of the institutional and freelance programmer, specialising in artist film and new media.

• Initial research approaches• How to develop networks and partners• How to curate events – both within institutions and off-site• Critical writing• Film production

Gareth Evans is a writer, curator, presenter and Film Curator at the Whitechapel Gallery. He programmes PLACE, the annual cross-platform festival at Aldeburgh Music in Suffolk and has curated numerous film and event seasons such as ‘Romany’ and ‘JG Ballard’, ‘John Berger: Here Is Where We Meet’ and ‘All Power to the Imagination! 1968 and Its Legacies’.

Karen Alexander is former senior tutor in the Royal College of Art’s Curating Contemporary Art department. She has worked as a freelance curator and consultant on film exhibition and distribution and has contributed to several books including Women and Film: Sight & Sound Reader (1999), and If Looks Could Kill (2008) amongst others.

The Art Fund is supporting the series by offering a number of fully funded places per course for curators and museum and gallery professionals. Applications will open in January 2015.

For any queries or for more information on the course, please contact courses@whitechapelgallery.org

• The processes behind planning exhibitions• Commissioning new work in challenging spaces• Touring exhibitions and biennales• Critical writing• How to navigate networks and institutions as an independent curator

Charlotte Bonham-Carter is Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at Richmond University, London. She was Curator of Art on the Underground and previously at ICA, London, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and Barbican Art Gallery, London. She is also an art critic and regular contributor to Flash Art, Art in America and is co-author of The Contemporary Art Book (Goodman, 2009,2011 and 2013), a survey of the most influential artists working today.

Currently the Director of Glasgow International, Sarah McCrory worked as curator of Frieze Projects and Film, for the London 2012 Festival and at Studio Voltaire. She was curator of self-publishing fair Publish and Be Damned and was a Director of Vilma Gold, London. She is on the jury of the 2014 Turner Prize.

The Art Fund is supporting the series by offering a number of fully funded places per course for curators and museum and gallery professionals. Applications will open in January 2015.

For any queries or for more information on the course, please contact courses@whitechapelgallery.org

Admission

Website

Careers in the Visual Arts: Strategic Development and Fundraising

10 April 2015 10am-6pm

We focus on the challenging and vital role of the Development professional, offering essential guidance that could be applied to working in small and large-scale organisations. Led by Stephen Escritt and Darryl de Prez the day will look at different strategies and models of working, funding bodies and their priorities, successful applications, key networks and contacts, capital projects, supporter programmes, commercial activity and corporate engagement.

Partner at Counterculture, Stephen Escritt provides business planning and financial management services to the arts and creative industries. He has worked at the British Museum and the Whitechapel Gallery, where he was Director of Strategic Development and delivered a successful model partnership between a cultural organisation and its local, national and private sector partners.

Head of Development at the Whitechapel Gallery, Darryl de Prez has over 20 years’ experience in fundraising and development, having worked at a range of charities and arts organisations including the National Trust, the Serpentine Gallery and English National Opera. Darryl is Alumni Ambassador at the Courtauld Institute, advising students on careers in arts development.

The Art Fund is supporting the series by offering a number of fully funded places per course for curators and museum and gallery professionals. Applications will open in January 2015.

For any queries or for more information on the course, please contact courses@whitechapelgallery.org

Suitable for

Not suitable for children

Admission

Pre-book your tickets.

Adult tickets, £195Concessions, £150

Course or class

Communications: Brand Vision and Strategy

17 April 2015 10am-6pm

Whether you’re setting up a small, self-led arts organisation or working within a major museum – knowledge of the ever-evolving field of communications is fundamental to audience engagement and to the critical reach of an organisation and its programmes. Rachel Mapplebeck and Jane Wentworth Associates take a look at brand, vision, values and developing effective communications strategies across digital and print.

You will learn about:

• The how, what and why of cultural branding• Maximising cultural organisation retail: how to use your assets to bring in revenue • Internal branding and how to live the brand

Rachel Mapplebeck is Head of Communications at the Whitechapel Gallery. A cultural communications specialist focused on building audiences, brand and profile for arts organisations, she leads on strategic brand and communications campaigns for over 30 exhibitions and 200 events a year.

Jane Wentworth Associates is a communications consultancy and international leader in brand for the cultural sector. They work with organisations to become more visible, more focused and more engaging, their expertise lies in brand strategy, identity and communications.

The Art Fund is supporting the series by offering a number of fully funded places per course for curators and museum and gallery professionals. Applications will open in January 2015.

For any queries or for more information on the course, please contact courses@whitechapelgallery.org